selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

I have an Epson ET-4760 that I use for scanning documents, and printing on plain paper to make document copies or printing stuff off of the internet. It's a great machine and it has worked very well for several years.

Lately it developed some problems with its print quality that I could not clear up with the basic Print Head Cleaning and Print Head Nozzle Check cycle. So I ran a Power Cleaning cycle. That didn't fix it either. So I Googled for a solution.

I found a YouTube video "How To Flush/Clean The Epson ET 4760 Not Printing Color/Black" and it seemed like it would be a good solution. It was, sort of. But I hit a major obstacle.

The final step in the process is to run another Power Cleaning cycle to refill the four small tanks on the printhead. To run a Power Cleaning cycle your refillable tanks need to be at least 1/3 full. That should have been a red flag. The cleaning cycle just might pump 1/3 of each tank directly into the maintenance tank. That means it's going to use a lot of ink. That's when I discovered that my Maintenance Tank was full and it would not run. I could not print anything.

I looked for a local source and nobody (Staples, Walmart, etc.) had maintenance tanks in stock or even knew what they were.

I had to order one from Amazon, not expensive. That would not have been a problem except that it will take five days to get here.

Rather than have the printer out of commission for five days I did a little more research and found another YouTube video "Epson Warns that Power Cleaning is bad for your printer! Learn how I unclog ink, the safe way!" Too bad I didn't find that one first. Not only is it safer, it's a lot less effort and doesn't use much ink at all. And it will probably work for any printer.

Please wait for links and images in my next post.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Here are the You Tube links:

How To Flush/Clean The Epson ET 4760 Not Printing Color/Black

Epson Warns that Power Cleaning is bad for your printer! Learn how I unclog ink, the safe way!

I printed this image (first pass looked awful)



and followed it with a normal Print Head Cleaning cycle which doesn't put much ink into the almost full maintenance tank.

After three repetitions the cyan ink looked good but the other three still needed a couple of repetitions. To save a little ink I edited the image and removed the cyan part and just printed the ones that still needed help. I am now back to normal.

twowindsbear

Can't you empty the maintenance tank? Why do need to replace it? My only experience is with a 54" printer's tank. We emptied the used ink into a laundry soap jug & added kitty litter to solidify it then trashed it.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Not on this printer.

Some of the older desktop printers didn't even have an option for the owner to clean or replace it. You had to get Epson to do it.

The good news is that it only costs between $10 and $15 and it's easy to replace. And it should for years if you don't run a Power Cleaning Cycle.

burkphoto Loc: High Point, NC

Good to know... I have an ET-4700 that required one cleaning cycle. So far, so good.

rehess Loc: South Bend, Indiana, USA

I use HP because you replace nozzles each time you need more ink. I know it might cost more, but I don’t print much.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

It looks like the system picked up some air in the lines during the Flush/Clean step. After resting overnight I started to see gaps again.

Although I can clear it with several runs of the normal cleaning cycle I am probably going to run into the same issue until I can do another Power Cleaning with an empty maintenance tank.

I probably would not have had this problem if I had not done the Flush/Clean.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

My previous Epson all-in-one also had small ink tanks on the print head. It went for a long time without an issue other than the cost of the ink.

My Epson R2880 has the small tanks on the print head but my P900 has larger tanks elsewhere. I use Qimge to print a color test pattern for both printers once each week. I have never had an Epson printer misbehave before.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Unfortunately, power cleaning with a fresh maintenance tank did not fix it. Although each regular cleaning cleared up the problem the fix did not last more than a couple of hours. I had to do some more research to avoid having to replace the unit or send it in for repair.

I tracked down another solution under an unlikely link How do I repair an Epson ecotank L4160 not printing colors after color cartridges left empty for 1 year?. That's not my case but my throughput on the printer has been irregular and there may have been some significant gaps.

The presentation explains that, "I suggest if you can’t fix this printer going after two attempt of power clean cycles, you should stop right there. What you then need to do is follow the windex method to clear the clog head." Not exactly my situation but the next statement was the key, "While this is for much larger large format printers but it also works for smaller epson printers." That was promising. It's a simple 10 minute video.

It addresses the one thing that none of the other procedures could deal with - the bottom surface of the printhead. It took a bit of time to repeat the process about 6 times at about four hours per run. After about 10 minutes to set it up the rest of the time the printer sat with the power off while the Windex did its work.

So far so good. I now have the printer on a regular schedule using Qimage like the other two printers.

selmslie Loc: Fernandina Beach, FL, USA

Here is another link: Epson T-series Nozzle Clogs - WINDEX FIX

Note that a smaller printer might need only a single layer of paper towel and about two hours before the towel starts to dry out.